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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Trustees disagree on admissions changes

Board debates raising IUB standards, impact on diversity

The IU board of trustees wants the Bloomington campus to become more elite, but many members disagree on how to get there.\nDuring the Academic Affairs Committee meeting, trustees, along with IU faculty members and administrators, debated how high IU should raise its admission standards and what methods should be used for admissions. The debate on admissions standards stems from the trustees' goal to make IU more competitive with elite institutions such as University of Michigan and University of Illinois.\n"The perception is that -- and I know many of us have heard this anecdotally -- many third and fourth generations of IU families are opting not to go to here because they perceive the quality of IU is going down," trustee Tom Reilly, Jr. said.\nUniversity Chancellor Ken Gros Louis and Interim Provost Michael McRobbie led the discussion about the pros and cons of several criteria for raising admissions, including class rank, SAT scores and overall grade point average.\nThe biggest debate was about the use of SAT scores and class ranks, which officials said measure different things. Don Hossler, education professor and former vice chancellor for enrollment services, said focusing on one or another will have a different outcome for IUB.\nSome say relying on class rank can help students from economically disadvantaged high schools who might not test as well on the SAT because of costs associated with preparing for the test. On the other hand, others argue students from more prestigious high schools might have lower class rankings, but can still perform well on the SAT.\nCurrently, IUB does not have minimums in place for either criterion. There is no formula used in IUB's office of admissions, but the office does require a high school degree, certain course credit requirements and either the SAT or ACT. Generally, the office recommends in-state students to be in the top half of their class and out-of-state students to be in the top third, but that is all considered alongside grades and SAT scores as well, according to its Web site.\nAdministrators are currently looking at establishing minimum requirements for class rank, SAT scores or both. The trustees discussed establishing a minimum SAT score of between 1020 and 1060. IU would start at a lower minimum and increase its standards -- possibly by 12 points a year -- to reach its target. The debate occurs about which criteria to emphasize more.\nReilly said he is wary of emphasizing class rank because students in the bottom of their classes at private high schools generally do better at IU than students in the top half at rural schools.\nReilly also said that raising SAT scores is the best way to attract smarter students. He said that when he was on the board of trustees at Butler University, it raised SAT scores by 15 points a year to reach an increase of 170 points. He said it had a positive impact and the faculty members were inspired by the students.\n"The faculty were energized. They can tell the difference in 15 points," Reilly said. "It's one of the four or five things you need to do to become an elite university."\nGros Louis said he wanted to express the dangers of putting so much emphasis on SAT scores because he doesn't believe they are a true indicator of a student's potential for success.\nCharlie Nelms, vice president for institutional development and student affairs, said the SAT needs to be used only in conjunction with other criteria and that College Board, the company which designs the test, agrees with that statement.\nTrustee Cora Breckenridge said she worries that wealthier students do better on the SAT since they can afford more preparation courses and retaking the test. She said that IU can become more elite, but it shouldn't be at the cost of diversity in student population.\n"If Trustee Reilly had his way, we'd be Stanford," she said. "I think we need to be Indiana University and to help students in Indiana succeed. And as long as I'm a trustee on this board, I will make sure that Indiana University remains accessible.\n"Tom Reilly thinks the students inspire the faculty, but what about the faculty inspiring the students?" \nHossler said the Bloomington campus might see a 42 percent drop in minority enrollment if IU acts too quickly in adopting higher admissions standards.\nBreckenridge said that statistic worries her because she feels that students from poorer, urban areas should be given a chance to succeed. She emphasized SAT scores cannot be the determining factor for admissions. She said that attributes such as maturity are better measured through GPA, class rank and extracurricular activities than by test scores.\nIU law professor Kevin Brown said SAT scores "shouldn't be the 'be all, end all.'" He noted the success of students in the Hudson and Holland Scholars Program, a program that offers merit-based scholarships and individual mentoring for mostly underrepresented minority students. According to statistics, HHSP graduates students with SAT scores at least 100 points below IUB's 1120 median score at a rate higher than the graduation rate for IUB as a whole.\nBreckenridge said IU needs to work with K-12 education in Indiana if admission standards are to be raised. She said she suggested that the board meet with Dr. James Comer, a professor of child psychiatry at Yale University, who has focused on promoting child development as a way to improve education in schools.\nBart Ng, president of the University Faculty Council, said that raising standards is the best way to help K-12 education. He said that if students want to go to IU, then they'll work harder to reach the minimum requirements.\nThose in attendance also discussed other ways IU can change its student population through admissions standards.\nIU President Adam Herbert said he wants to better shape the student population.\n"I don't think as a major research institution that we have enough graduate students," Herbert said. "We may need to shrink the freshman class to do this. That's something I'd be willing to do to get more graduate students."\nOthers think IU might be striving for an unachievable goal by comparing itself to the Big Ten's elite. \n"We will never be a Michigan or an Illinois in my opinion," Hossler said.\nHossler said because resources are split between two main campuses, IUB has a hard time competing with more centralized Big Ten schools. He said because of such differences, such as a lack of school of medicine, IUB can only raise perceptions and rankings so much through increased admissions standards.

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